Hi Folks
Hope you are all well.
I made an interesting contact a couple of weeks ago who has put me in touch with a Malter in Irelnad who supplies internationally and who has a soft spot for home brewers.
Now the advice I would like to ask from the club as a whole is, how do I ask this malter about the propect of supplying a club like ours, or if we would even be interested. I thought I would ask the question of you guys before contacting the malter.
Any thoughts?
Cheers BrewBilly
Sound interesting. I suppose the questions to ask are how is it supplied (bags ortrucks), what they can supply and what are the costs.
Also it would be nice to know if that's a malter from cork or a different one? :)
Sent from my engineering tricorder.
From what I have seen they do bags, and yes its the Cork malter.
Just asking initial questions.
it Must be a Cork based supplIer ;)
Quote from: Tube on May 08, 2013, 11:58:56 PM
Andy, is this Malting Company of Ireland in Cork?
Unfortunately there are only two maltings left in Ireland, one in Athy in Co Kildare, the other in Cork. The Athy one is not interested in small business, but the Cork one is.
Sent from my ZX Spectrum 48k using Sinclair BASIC
Tube,
Yes it is the Malting Company of Ireland.
From some research that I have done is that they even have some connection with home brewing in the states through Northern Brewer, The guy that put me on to them works with various brewers and distillers around the country etc and said it would be worth while contacting the MCI. I was chatting to this guy about the ridiculous shipping costs to get anything shipped to Northern Ireland.
Has any contact been made in the past with MCI? Would it be of benefit to us to consider sourcing Malted Barley closer to home?
Any thoughts?
Just off the phone from Chris OFlynn of MCI.
They will be breaking ground on their new bagging plant in June, and hope to have this completed by the end of July.
A forklift is included as part of this 200k investment.
Bagging will be 25kg. Smaller quantities are not expected to be available, although it has been considered.
The driving force behind the bagging plant is that it allows them to palletise and ship themselves.
The current business model means that the client has to collect.
Typically grain arrives in 28tonne bulk containers and leaves in 26tonne (but much happier!)
The Malt is typically at 4% moisture and will keep for a year, ambient temps are fione for storage with moisture being its main enemy.
That being said, moisture will only soften the husk and so only really impacts in lager commercial breweries.
Malts available are...
Pale Ale
Stout
Lager
Distilling
I have asked for the data sheets on these and will post once I have them.
Bagging is currently a manual process which as requires some additional man-power, so bagging is to-order only.
Small quantities are bagged by sight bags are about EUR10 (roughly 10k-12kg)
Larger quantities are sold by weighbridge at EUR800/tonne
I was in Fermanagh at the weekend, stopped into an offie to pick up some local fare and got chatting beer and brewing with the salesperson.
I was asked more-or-less the same question as you have posed above.
I reckon there is definitely scope for a NI group buy.
What better excuse for a trip down South than a big Malt pickup, stay-over and meet with other brewers in the Franciscan Well!
If you NI lads need someone down here to coordinate anything at MCI I would help as best I can.
I got prices from Chris and was talking to him last month, I did advise him that his collected are the same as Bairds delivered, however MCI's product is superior to anything from Bairds and in my head its.
1)Weyermans
2)MCI
3)Bairds
He sends a sh1t load (Commercially sensitive number) of product to the US specifically for the homebrew market, not to mention the volume TAF uses ;).
Cant wait until he has his bagging line up and running and we should be supporting him going forward.
I've emailed Chris details of the forum etc. so he can snoop and see allt he good things we say about them!
This is great news all round.
No harm to provide Chris with a gentle reminder along with the prospect of more business!
I drive from Dublin up to Belfast at least once a month, so if you need a couple of bags brought up, let me know and we'll sort something out - will save you a packet in postage!
Great work everyone! This sounds promising!
MCI Spec sheets attached
Quote from: Irish Party Ale on May 14, 2013, 02:46:39 PM
I drive from Dublin up to Belfast at least once a month, so if you need a couple of bags brought up, let me know and we'll sort something out - will save you a packet in postage!
Irish PA that sounds really good
Hopefully I will have my AG kit sorted out soon and get my first AG brew on the go.
How often do you come up to Belfast? Would anyone know how much a 25kg bag of grain would be?
Cheers
BrewBilly - AKA Andy
@Brewbilly... Did you read the whole thread?
Hint: #8
@Tube... Did you read the whole thread?
Hint: #8
Nah Nah!
ok girls back away slowly from the handbags ::)
Slowly Chaps,
@johnrm take a look at the first post and see who started the thread, second I have been reading the posts and know that the bagging plant is not up and running. Just lining up the ducks that's all.
The only reason so many saffas are into home brew is that we LOVE BEER.
@johnrm thanks for making the discussion a bi more lively.
Cheers
BrewBilly
No worries, as before, let me know if you need any assist. Glad to help out if I can.
I've been in touch with Chris for a number of months, he sent me pdfs of the spec sheets of the different malts so how can I best upload them to here so everyone can have a look? He also sent me details of which varieties of barley they use. I can copy and paste that. At a more reasonable time when my eyes work properly...
Ha, I didn't even see the 2nd page of this thread so as I was saying about my eyes not working!! Spec sheets already posted above....
Probably best if we keep Johnrm as primary contact with Chris as he's local loike. I also enquired a couple months back the poor man is probably very confused now about all these fellas from the NHC!!
Or delighted that there is such interest in their new venture!! Makes sense if there are going to be group purchases to have a local coordinating. Who can bring us to the Well when the biz has been done...
As John says there are a number of people in touch with MCI.
They are being considered for a stand at the home brew expo in Cork...
http://nationalhomebrewclub.com/forum/index.php/topic,1065.msg31466.html#msg31466
I phoned MCI yesterday.
Chris is on Hols to got speaking to Dick Walsh, the head man.
They hit a few bumps so have had to rethink the scale.
A hopeful ETA is end Sept 2013
Is Belfast considering buying into the group buy on this? Seems to be some heading to Dublin so could be easy enought to get it from there. Alternatively, there is some heading to Galway where I could pick it up easily enough. But I'm in Enniskillen and don't be in Belfast that much...
The last GB of MCI malts were landed in Malahide and picked by Moira ( Sub82's lady).
The north county brewers are in for this GB so if you want I will get it to Malahide and if OK with Moira/Sub82/any one else pickup from me.
BTW Malahide is just off the M1 !!
Further to the pedant metinks that this is not so,. De M1 is the road from Dublin to Belfast :)
You're both right and both wrong.
The M1 in the north runs from Belfast to near Dungannon.
The M1 in the south runs from the border at Newry to Dublin.
M1's are pretty popular as it goes. England has one too and it goes nowhere near Dublin.
Do I win a 'Most Pedantic Shite of the Day' t-shirt? :)
-Barry
Quote from: Ciderhead on May 16, 2013, 07:39:15 PM
ok girls back away slowly from the handbags ::)
+1
Probably best to discuss transport on the open forum as some lads won't be reading in here...
http://nationalhomebrewclub.com/forum/index.php/topic,3135.0.html
Duncannon - http://goo.gl/ENzYZ
Nowhere near Eniskillen
I Stand Corrected: Forgot that the 3 bags with Moira were probably crushed.
However: If the Belfast lads need some whole MCI grain then I will facilitate distribution.
Want it milled? Then I could just run 10 kg through my CrankandStein!
Let me know - always willing to help out
Quote from: Bazza on July 15, 2013, 06:08:51 PM
You're both right and both wrong.
The M1 in the north runs from Belfast to near Dungannon.
The M1 in the south runs from the border at Newry to Dublin.
M1's are pretty popular as it goes. England has one too and it goes nowhere near Dublin.
Do I win a 'Most Pedantic Shite of the Day' t-shirt? :)
-Barry
I will have a go at winning that T-shirt. Wikipedia who are never wrong state,
"Almost the entire length of the N1 has been upgraded to motorway standard and is designated the M1 motorway. At 80 km it is the second longest stretch of motorway in Ireland, excluding connecting motorways. (The M7 motorway is the longest, at 186 km,). It runs from the Junction 3 of the M50 ring road in Dublin, past Swords, Balbriggan Drogheda and Dundalk before ending at Ballymascanlon north of Dundalk".
:) :)
Ye are all wrong, the dog on the street knows the M1 was started in 1959 and runs from London to Leeds.